Picks and Pans Review: Personal Velocity

Three different women have separate moments of epiphany, each suddenly knowing where she has been in her life and where she's going. That we recognize what has happened, and care, is a tribute to the diamond-sharp skill of writer-director Rebecca Miller (who based Personal Velocity on her 2001 short story collection of the same title) and the keenly felt performances of the three stars. Foremost among these is Sedgwick's. In the meatiest of the film's trio of episodes, she tears into the role of a battered working-class wife who reclaims her sassy self. Posey is a book editor who realizes that her success means she's going to leave her sweet but underachieving hubby. And Balk is a self-doubting pregnant woman who comes to see that she possesses maternal instincts after all. (R)